Ella Barron, mother of a son, ten, runs her Texas boarding house with the efficiency of a ship’s captain.  Then she’s pulled into an unusual series of events when she reluctantly rents one of her rooms to the handsome and dying Dr. David Rainwater.   The winds of change are blowing all over Texas, just as they are in the life that Ella has painstakingly built for herself and her son.

Averell Torrent, for Card’s bestselling novel Empire, is now a powerful and influential President of the United States who has launched the U.S. into a tough foreign policy stance.  Captain Bartholomew Coleman sees the danger in this and quickly runs afoul of Torrent, causing Cole to go on the run.  While he and his friends and allies seek the proof they need against Torrent, they uncover details of an assassination and of a near civil war.

Kinsey Millhone was alone in her office doing paperwork when Michael Sutton, 27, arrived unannounced to ask for her help.   Twenty-one years earlier, a four year-old girl had disappeared and was never found.  Recent references to her case had triggered memories in Sutton, who now believed he had stumbled upon her burial site when he was six years-old.  He wanted Kinsey to help Kinsey to help him locate the child’s remains and find those responsible for her death.  Kinsey would soon discover that Sutton had an uneasy relationship with the truth.

Former TV journalist Ali Reynolds, now in a media relations’ post with the Yavapai County Police Department, has her reporting and crime-solving skills tested on her first time out when a housing development goes up in flames.  Unfortunately, a woman victim of the fire is now hospitalized with amnesia.  When her caregiver asks Ali for help in discovering the woman’s identity, Ali exposes the woman to a killer who may want to come back and finish the job.

Chosen as the author to finish Jordan’s book, which was partially finished when Jordan passed in 2007, Sanderson brings to a close a journey began almost 20 years ago and concludes the Wheel of Time series as a Rand al’Thor the Dragon Reborn, struggles to unite a network of kingdoms and alliances in preparation for the Last Battle.